A Deal’s a Deal

In November, Pittsburgh radio station KDKA reported that U.S. soldier Jordan Fox had recently been ordered to return $3,000 of his $10,000 enlistment bonus because his blindness and back injury from a roadside bomb in Iraq prevented him from fulfilling the final three months of his one-year Army “commitment.” Fox said he was surprised to learn that giving back this money is considered standard. Rep. Jason Altmire (D-Pennsylvania) has introduced legislation to change that policy.

Cultural Diversity

Most television and film producers in Europe and the United States have dialogue dubbed into foreign languages using voices that are appropriate for each actor. But in Poland the dubbing continues to be done by “lektors”males with smoking-seasoned voices who speak the dialogue of each character in a story in the same pitch. The trick, according to an October Wall Street Journal dispatch, is “speaking so smoothly that viewers forget that Paris Hilton sounds like a Polish Johnny Cash.” One experiment that used six different actors for the cast of an episode of “Friends” bombed with viewers in Poland, and the next week the lektor returned.

Update

Wayne DuMond, who made News of the Weird in 1988, briefly resurfaced in December 2007 as part of the Republican presidential race. DuMond was an Arkansas rape suspect in 1984 (later convicted) when he said that vigilantes castrated him, and the evidence of that wound up in a jar on the desk of the sheriff of St. Francis County (a prop the sheriff used in law-enforcement speeches).

His name recently resurfaced because former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, now vying for the Republican presidential nomination, allegedly persuaded the parole board to release DuMond, supposedly under pressure from evangelical Christians who were skeptical of his guilt. However, after being paroled, DuMond killed a Missouri woman, was convicted again, and died in prison in 2005.

code, will assign celebrities to members who are touched by a particular star. Even in the face of criticism, members stand firm. “I don't know if I could turn off this compassion that I feel (for a particular celebrity),” said one member. “I'm called to do this, so I do.”

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Even though the American West seems to be perpetually faced with the threat of drought, developer Richard Mladick is nonetheless preparing to build Waveyard, a massive water theme park, near Mesa, Ariz. The park will require 50 million gallons of groundwater to open and as much as 100 million gallons annually.

“I couldn't imagine raising my kids in an environment where they wouldn't have the opportunity to grow up being passionate about the same sports that I grew up being passionate about,” Mladick said, in reference to kayaking, scuba diving and surfing. Voters approved Waveyard overwhelmingly, based on Mladick's promise of jobs and tax revenue.

Obsessions

At least a half-dozen groups in five countries are seriously engaged in the quest to show that man can fly through the air and land without a parachute, according to a December New York Times report. “All of this is technically possible,” said a physics professor, referring to the wing suits that fliers are testing. “The thing I'm not sure of is … safety.” Some wing suits have slowed vertical descent, briefly, to about 30 miles per hour, though the fliers were still moving horizontally at about 75 mph, which is why all testing is done with a parachute backup.

American Jeb Corliss said that he believes he could land even at 120 mph, provided that the wing suit had a frame that was sturdy enough to protect his neck.

Least Competent Criminals

Holdup-Note Blues: Arthur Cheney, 64, was arrested near Marysville, Calif., in December while driving a car that had been spotted at a bank robbery. On the center console of the car, officers allegedly found a yellow “sticky” note with a

Latest Religious Messages

handwritten message that said, “Robbery100s and 50s only.” Said an officer, “We call that a clue.” And Orlando Taylor, 26, was arrested while More than 5,000 Christians have joined walking in the door of a Bank of America the Hollywood Prayer Network to pray anonymously for the spiritual transformation of certain troubled celebrities, according to a report in the Chicago Sun in Brooklyn, N.Y., in December. Police suspected he was up to no good because he had a holdup note in his pocket (and an employee identified him from a prior Times in November. Also, an “Incognito Prayer Network,” whose members wear robbery of the same bank).

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